354 NOTES AND COMMENTS [may 



Mr. Buckman says further that we have misunderstood him in some 

 other respects, but we can do no more than refer our readers to the 

 original paper which is now completed, and which will be found full 

 of interest and instruction. 



Welwitsch's Collection. 



The Trustees of the British Museum have just issued a third part of 

 the account of the plants collected in Angola by Dr. Welwitsch. 

 Like Parts I. and II. (already noticed in Natural Science) it is the 

 work of Mr. Iliern, and carries the account of the Dicotyledons from 

 Dipsaceae to Scrophulariaceae. Nearly half the book is occupied 

 by the great order Compositae, of which 80 genera find representatives 

 in the flora of this strip of western tropical Africa. According to 

 Welwitsch's own estimate the proportion of Composites was in Angola 

 proper about a sixteenth of the total number of species of seed-plants. 

 Further south, in Benguella and Huilla, it was one-ninth or one-tenth, 

 thus approaching nearer to that prevailing in the Cape flora, where the 

 plants of this family reach their highest proportion. In the primeval 

 forests of the mountains several arborescent species occur, and various 

 small trees and shrubs supply the natives with tonic-bitter barks for 

 use in cases of fever and diarrhoea. A species of lettuce in Loanda 

 affords an excellent salad. By the incorporation of Dr. Welwitsch's 

 copious notes the work has a general interest not usually associated 

 with a technical systematic treatise. It will be news even to most 

 botanists that the genus Strychnos, which gives us the deadly Nux 

 Vomica, furnishes also " well-tasting fruits resembling oranges, and 

 called by the natives Maboca," under which name several wholesome 

 and common species of fruit are known, " especially in the interior of 

 Huilla, where at their proper season, in December and January, the 

 natives can buy from two to four dozen for a cotton handkerchief or a 

 sheet of white paper." 



In nomenclature Mr. Hiern follows Dr. Kuntze, and sometimes 

 rejoices in outdoing his master. He has rediscovered several names 

 of genera which by law of priority must replace those hitherto accepted. 

 For instance, Marsea, Detris, Eliclirysum, and the less euphonious 

 •Crocodilodcs, all restorations from Adanson, will not be familiar to 

 workers on Compositae, while Pacouria, founded by Aublet in 1775, 

 must replace Landolphia, which did not see the light till early in 

 the present century, as the name of the well-known rubber-producins 



5 



genus. 



The numerous specimens cited, the considerable proportion of new 

 species described, and the great number of species hitherto known which 

 are recorded, will impress the botanist with the untiring industry of Dr. 



